


And Cry Behind The Dawn

by MooseFeels



Series: Kept [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Dean Winchester, One Thousand and One Nights, Prostitution, fairy tale, former slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:28:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where next?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean is turned away from him. Not looking.

“Amazing,” he barely murmurs. “The corps, amazing.” He looks back at Castiel, his green eyes intense in the fading light of the burning fire. “I’m...I’m sorry,” he says, softly. “Your stories...I’m sorry.”

Castiel wraps the long blue cloak a little closer over his shoulders. They are bare- his clothes from the house do not cover much and he’s come farther north than he has in such a long time. He was more likely to be overly warm in the house than he was to be cool. A hot sun in the day. A full bed at night.

“Sometimes,” Castiel says softly, “sometimes I remember...does it ever snow?” He asks.

He’d forgotten about it for a long time until traders from the north came one night. Whispered things in his ear that made him hide his face in the linens and so he wouldn’t see the tears. Weepy whores never got requested again, and while his words about the great white, the solid water, the air that was so cold,  made something ache inside of Castiel, he was still kind, in his way. He was gentle. Slow. He didn’t make Castiel bleed.

Dean looks at Castiel for a long time. Murmurs, “There should be a trading post soon enough. We’ll find something you can wear. It gets colder from here. Wrong time of year for snow unless you want to go through the mountains.”

“On the other side,” Castiel says softly, “of the mountains, is there the sea?”

Dean grabs his bag and tosses something over the fire to Castiel’s hands. A bundle of yellowed paper, crinkled and crunching.

A treasure.

“A map,” Dean says. “I’ll show you how to use it in the morning. The little points, those are the mountains. The swirls, that’s the sea.”

He turns away. “I set up the other tent for you. You’ll want it, tonight.”

He heads into his own tent, leaving Castiel with the map in the low firelight.

His hands shake as he gently fingers the thin paper open. His breath is too fast in his chest.  He hasn’t seen something like this, he hasn’t seen a map or a piece of paper or a book in what seems like…like forever. It’s so fragile under his fingers. So important in his grasp.

It spreads out in front of him, wide and brown and indecipherable. The ink is scratched onto it in such twisted, pointed.

The little points upward. The swirls.

The northern mountains. The sea.

* * *

 

Dean unwraps the scarf covering his face and lays back on the thin mattress made of riding blankets. Buries his body under his cloak. Stares at the shadow made against the canvas wall of his tent by the whor- by his traveling companion reading the map.

Castiel, Dean remembers. A name from the tongue of the angels.

When he gets back into the Empire-

If he ever gets back into the Empire, he’ll have to tell the propaganda corps that they left quite a mark out here in these desert lands; that he’s heard their own stories told back to him better.

Dean still isn’t sure why he killed the man. He was a soldier. Soldiers go to brothels. Honestly, he should have just been pleased to hear that he had paid. That he hadn’t beaten him. That he hadn’t whipped him.

Dean had heard other stories before. Darker stories.

You left them all there to die, he’d growled. You know what’s coming. You know. This isn’t- you’ve seen it. You’ve seen it you son of a bitch.

The wyrm does more than burn people, and it gets a little longer with every city the magicians unleashed it upon.

Dean turns and looks up at the low, peaked canvas roof of his tent and tries to shut out the constant chorus of damned, damned, damned in his head. Tries to tell himself that saving one life can be enough.

Dean inhales, long and slow. He shuts his eyes.

In his dreams, he is the one summoning the wyrm.

In his dreams, he doesn’t have the scars.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel wakes up with his heart pounding in his chest and the sound of screams ringing in his ears. He sits up and looks to his left.

It is pitch black inside of his tent and freezing. He wraps his cloak more closely around his shoulders and peers out of the tent flaps. Outside, the day has come just barely enough to make the sky and air grey, just enough that he can see the outline of of the tent next to his, the horse, the trees.

It is so cold here that his breath hang onto the air like small clouds. It makes him feel like a dragon, like one in the stories they told him when he was very, very small. Before they told him true stories about angels and princes and things that mattered.

He looks at it in amazement for a long moment, and then he hears the screaming again.

Castiel jumps, startled by the sudden sound and struggle. It is the most anguished noise he has ever heard. More terrible than the sound of the murder he heard once, more terrible that the sound of the mob that followed it. It is high and terrifying.

No, he screams. Dean screams.

Castiel disentangles himself out of his tent and bursts into Dean’s, where he lays thrashing on the ground. Still dark in the tent, but enough that Castiel can see the shape of his struggle, his kicking legs and squirming arms.

“Dean!” he cries. “Dean, wake up!” He reaches down and holds Dean’s legs still. Finds his arms and holds them as well. Castiel winds up straddled over his hips, holding his arms to the earth. “Dean!” he cries once more, voice rough from sleeping.

The thrashing stops and the struggling does too. There is just the sound of Dean panting in the tent. His panic fresh on the air.

“You were dreaming,” Castiel says.

“Get out,” Dean answers. “Please. Get out. I’ll be fine. Give me a moment. Get out.”

Castiel climbs off of Dean and parts the flaps of the narrow tent.

There is something to the timing- he moves just right, looks back just in time, the sun comes out and for just the briefest instant, the clearest moment of time, Castiel can see Dean’s eyes, his face, his mouth.

Anguish.

* * *

 

Dean wakes up with a solid weight on top of his body and panic in his brain and fear inside of him.

He sends Castiel away before he can see Dean. Before he can see him for the monster he is. The wolf in sheeps clothing. The broken soldier. The demon.

Dean wraps his scarf about his face in the tent, working quickly, naturally.

Castiel is beautiful. When he had gone back, to that place, he had been expecting- he wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. He hadn’t been expecting his skin, left tanned by sun filtered into indoor rooms. He hadn’t been expecting his broad, muscular shoulders, his collar bones like blades pressing out of his flesh. He hadn’t been expecting the fine, thin tattoos snaking around his arms, leaving him marked as property, or rather, he hadn’t expected them to be so...so beautiful. He hadn’t come there to see his eyes.

So bright. So sharp. So sad.

He has to get them to a trading post today, get some good clothes for Castiel that will actually cover him. He’s in danger with the tattoos exposed- it means he can be reclaimed as property by someone who knows how to read their meaning. His pants aren’t meant for riding either, and nothing he’s wearing will keep him warm enough. The cloak was a godsend, but when what he has on underneath is mere gauze, it won’t be long before he falls ill.

If Dean were richer, were smarter, were crueler, he would put Castiel in a castle that Dean ruled. Place a diadem on his brow. Make him the image, the worship of a nation.

Castiel's smart, though. Smarter than Dean could have ever thought he would be. He would know a prison when he saw one. Probably a lot better than Dean or his brother ever would.

Dean steps out of the tent.

Castiel stands there, in the small clearing, cloak tugged tight against his shoulders. He shivers a little bit, but he stands still.

Dawn breaks over the trees. They look like hands, digging into the sky. Bright colors.

“It looks different here,” he says.

“It looks different every day,” Dean replies.

Dean wraps his coat over Castiel’s shoulders. “You’ll catch your death,” he murmurs. “I’ll pack up. Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from misheard lyrics of The Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties."


End file.
